SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — The California Supreme Court will decide whether the Santa Monica City Council violated the state Voting Rights Act by diluting the Latino vote and leaving Latino residents unable to elect their preferred candidates to the council.
The court heard arguments Tuesday in the case filed by the Pico Neighborhood Association and Maria Loya, wife of current Santa Monica councilman Oscar De La Torre, and the Advocates for Malibu Public Schools in 2016, in which they claim that Santa Monica's at-large election system was designed to prevent non-anglo residents of Santa Monica from being represented in the local government.
The plaintiffs said in their complaint that since the introduction of the at-large system 60 years ago, only one Latino had been elected to the City Council, and none of council members came from Santa Monica's Pico Neighborhood, where the city's Latino population is concentrated.
Loya claimed that she and many other Latinos ran in elections in Santa Monica but were defeated every time by bloc voting of the non-Latino electorate even though she and other Latino candidates were preferred by Latino voters and voters in the Pico neighborhood.
In 2018, the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled against the city and called for a district election, but the city appealed and won in 2020, with the appeals court ruling there were not enough Latino voters in the Pico neighborhood for a new district, and that the dilution argument requires an increase in voter power through district elections to impact election results.
Plaintiff appealed to the California Supreme Court, and the court said its review would focus on a benchmark definition for vote dilution under the California Voting Rights Act.
Kevin Shenkman, counsel for the plaintiffs, argued that the court of appeals incorrectly overturned the 2018 ruling because the plaintiffs proved there was racially polarized voting in Santa Monica to the jury. Shenkman called for a switch to a district voting system, and proposed splitting the city into districts, creating a Pico district that would be 30% Latino compared to 14% Latino citywide.
At the heart of the arguments Tuesday was the word “influence” and its meaning. Shenkman argued that “influence districts” could not be tied solely to how many minority voters a district has.
Justice Joshua Groban took issue with the wide-ranging definition Shenkman gave and asked him to clarify numerous times.
“I keep thinking about our job and the questions presented, which is, among other things, go tell trial courts what ‘influence’ means and do it in a way that would allow them to actually separate valid claims from invalid claims,” Groban said. “To get back to the court of appeals’ concern of not creating a definition of ‘influence’ that is so amorphous that any uptick in power, no matter how small, states a violation of the statute.”
Shenkman said that Pico Neighborhood Association proved that there was racially polarized voting in Santa Monica to a jury in 2018 and was unsure why the court of appeals reversed the jury’s ruling. He said that Latinos could not adequately influence elections in Santa Monica.
“The trial court found a significant pattern of racially polarized voting and that these district elections would improve minority voting power,” Shenkman said. “At-large systems are known to disfavor minorities, and switches to district elections from at-large are known generally to improve minority community chances."
Theodore Boutrous, counsel for the city of Santa Monica, pushed back on Shenkman’s claims, saying that they were based on “theory” and were misleading. Boutros said numerous Latino candidates have won elections in Santa Monica in the previous decade, and that the city’s track record of electing Latino candidates proves there is no vote dilution.
Boutrous said that changing to a district voting system would actually reduce Latinos’ voting power and remove a current Latino council member from their seat. He said Shenkman’s argument was “based solely on race” and was unconstitutional.
“I think Mr. Shenkman just asked the court to endorse an amorphous standard that defies basic principles of statutory interpretation that ignores the reality of sustained Latino success,” Boutros said.
Bourtros argued that there is no proof that moving to a district system would be helpful, saying any benefits were based on “dangerous political theory.”
Shenkman said that the electorate and Latino voters preferred district elections over at-large elections, and that there was no evidence that district elections would dilute the minority vote.
“A lot of experimentation is being advocated,” Boutros argued. “Somebody immediately suggests that it might be better to have a district system and there might be good things to come from it. But that is not a compelling justification under the equal protection clause to command the city to junk its electoral system and gather people by race.”
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